Turning to retirement plans consultants who sell investment advice to plan managers may be a wrong step for those following the plans, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On Monday, SEC said it would launch an investigation on whether the advice consultants give corresponds to the demands of the market and whether pension plans participants are saved from advising fraud.

"We do think these findings are very serious," said Lori Richards, director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. "Our enforcement division is investigating a number of pension consultants," she added.

The previous inquiry launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission about a year ago showed that investment costs and returns for plan participants are very questionable as some consultants’ advice may be biased in favor of money managers and brokerages.

Pension plans are a very disputable matter now in the US amid the pension failure of such big carriers as United Airlines, a UAL Corp. unit, that won court approval to terminate its pension plans last week indicating the biggest corporate pension default in US history.

"The harm here, if you will, is that these conflicts of interest have the potential to cloud the objectivity of the pension consultant’s advice. Conflicts of interest are serious, even if you can’t trace them to direct monetary harm," Ms. Richards said.

Retirement plan advisers now number 1,700 on the SEC’s list. In December 2003, SEC requested information from such firms as Callan Associates, Wilshire Associates, Segal Advisors and the Mercer Investment Consulting unit of insurance broker Marsh & McLennan Cos. Now the Securities and Exchange Commission investigates business practices of 24 consultants.